Volume 1

The standard physician : a new and practical encyclopaedia of medicine and hygiene especially prepared for the household / edited by Sir James Crichton-Browne [and others].

Date:: 1908-1909

Credit: The standard physician : a new and practical encyclopaedia of medicine and hygiene especially prepared for the household / edited by Sir James Crichton-Browne [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

300/430 (page 274)

$Blood Blood-Poleonlng THE STANDARD PHYSICIAN 274 In the endeavour thus to modify the internal organs, or parts lying in close proximity to the organs, this counter-irritation may be used. Thus, in the treatment of pleurisy and pneumonia, counter-irritation is helpful to give muscle-tone to the blood-vessels of the lungs and pleura, and it may assist in preventing over-distention, with resulting paral3\sis, in these blood- vessels. Counter-irritation is also widely employed to overcome neuralgia. Here the counter-irritation is thought to bring about a similar modification in the condition of the blood-vessels of the nerve-trunks ; and the good effects that follow application of the actual cauteiy, or of fly-blister, along the course of the sciatic nerve in sciatica are to be interpreted in some such manner. Blisters are verv frequently used in other regions of the body. Thus, used on the knee-joint the^^ are helpful in diminishing suffusion or the col- lection of water on the knee ; at the back of the neck they are often useful in relieving chronic headaches ; and in chronic joint-diseases in general the}^ are often veiy helpful. In the use of blisters, care should be taken that the serum does not become infected. The use of blistering agents has diminished considerably within recent years, as newer and more effective modes of treatment have come into service for such affections in which blisters were formerl}^ used. The argu- ment is not that blisters are no longer effective—the\^ are as useful as ever —but that other methods of treatment are even more serviceable. BLOOD.—See Introductory Ch.apters (pp. 107-109). BLOOD-DISEASES.—See An.emia ; Blood-Poisoning; H.kmophilia! Venereal Disease. BLOOD-LETTING (VENESECTION).—A very old remedial and thera- peutic measure. Certain observers have claimed that animals at times deliberateh' bite into their blood-vessels in order to abstract blood. This observation is supposed to have promised similar experiments in man. The old Creek plysician Hippocrates, who flourished about 400 b.c., recommended the procedure for various ills. Alternatelv combated, ]u*aised, used to excess, or almost entirely forgotten, it was gradually aban- doned during the latter half of the nineteenth century. More recent^, how- ever, it has again attracted attention. At present venesection is resorted to in certain diseases for the purpose of removing the blood from an over- tilled and exhausted heart in order to lighten its work and increase its strength. It is emplo\^ed also to relieve congestion of various organs which temporarily contain an excessive amount of blood, and for the j^urposes of removing poisonous materials and stimulating the production of new blood. The principal conditions in which blood-letting may be of service are pneu- monia, pleurisy, heart disease, cerebral haemorrhage (apoplexy), epilepsy, and a number of intoxications due to endogenous poisons. \’enesection is usually done from one of the large veins of the arm, sometimes from vessels of the foot. The \'ein is opened with an ordinary$